Project Pallid

by Christopher Hoskins

  “Nope. Everyone’s been asking the same thing. We’re all out, but they say we’ll have more in by tomorrow, probably. You might want to get here early, though. I don’t think it’ll last long.”

  “Well, don’t you think it’s a little inappropriate that you haven’t ordered enough at a time like this?” Mom queried. “When all the news is telling us to go out and stock up? How are we supposed to stock up on things that you don’t have?”

  “I know, Ma’am, and I’m sorry, but we’re doing everything we can. We’re all in the same boat right now.”

  “And those.” Impervious to the apology and to all rationality, Mom pointed toward canned vegetables that rolled down the belt. “Don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to go marking up your prices just to make an extra profit at a time like this?”

  “Ma’am, I can assure you, those are the same price they’ve always been. We haven’t marked anything up.”

  “I come here every week,” Mom asserted. “Every week for the past ten years. And I know very well what those where and what they are now. Don’t even try to pretend like someone’s not making money off all this,” she proclaimed, waving her arm behind us and toward the sea of shoppers and carts, jam-packed with rations.

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’m just in charge of the register. I can get you a manager if you’d like to speak with someone, though.” The emerging aggravation in the young cashier’s voice was clear and apparent.

  “Don’t bother. It’s not like it’ll do any good, and it’s not like I’ll ever be coming here to shop again. No one will, if what Pastor Dave says is true.”

  “Pastor Dave?” The girl cynically snickered. “That nut-job from TV?” she asked, referencing the clips of Mr. Laverdier that’d begun to air the day before. In them, he calmly iterated the words of warning that my mom and the rest of his troops had taken to the streets. “That guy’s totally off his rocker. He thinks this is some Armageddon, right? Like, from the Bible? That anyone who doesn’t listen to him is as good as gone? I’m sorry, Ma’am, but I wouldn’t put much faith into anything you heard from that lunatic.”

  There was a second of processing before Mom’s forehead crinkled, her expression turned firm, and her eyes went red with hate. Both her hands moved to the small, check-writing pedestal, and her fingers curled around it, white-knuckled. She leaned in so close that her intrusion forced the girl to stop swiping cans over the scanner. The young cashier took a step back and raised both hands defensively as my mom unleashed. And like she’d wanted all along, Mom finally had the complete attention of everyone around us: lanes 4, 5, 7, and 8 included.

  “You listen to me, honey. And you’d better listen good, while you’ve still got time to change your ways. I know you’ve only been around for the past sixteen years—

  “Nineteen, Ma’am.” Whether brave or just plain stupid, the girl interrupted.

  “Oh. Par-don me.” The heavy sarcasm was unmistakable in Mom’s voice. “You’ve only been around nineteen years. Sixteen, nineteen, it doesn’t make any difference. You’re young, you’re naïve, and you’ve got no idea what this world is becoming. He does, though,” Mom said, with a look toward the ceiling. “And we don’t think he’s too happy with where things are headed. This is His time, and we’re all just messengers of that. We’re here to help you—the young, the numb, and the just plain ignorant—to right your ways and to see things for what they are before it’s too late. All this? This sickness they’re warning everyone about? Well, it’s only just the beginning. You just wait and see what He has in store for us. All this … this chaos … this panic … it might seem like some bad dream, but it’s not, and its utopia compared to what’s left to come. And it’s one you’ll be begging for when The Whitening really takes hold. All this is just a glimpse. And when all’s said and done, I hope you don’t suffer much. Or for long. Nope. Not at all. In fact, I hope you come to your senses before then. And when you do, that lunatic you spoke so critically of—that lunatic will be waiting for you with open arms,” Mom concluded, and neatly placed one of The Gathering’s contact cards on the keyboard of the register. “And now, if you’ll kindly finish up here,” she motioned to our groceries at both ends of the belt, “we still have preparations of our own to attend to.”

  Without another word, the shaken girl removed the card from her keyboard and, handling it like radioactive uranium, she placed it on the counter beside her.

  Gradually, the eyes of onlookers returned to their own duties, leaving minds to race with the questions that’d been plaguing all of Madison, Platsville, and neighboring towns, since the first warnings of pandemic were released a day earlier. It wasn’t played up enough, though—not to the degree it should’ve been. They were mostly cautionary words about a few unexplainable events with common, connecting origins that traced back to Mrs. Arnold and the hospital.

  All signs pointed to an infectious virus or something of that sort, but the details of it were still hazy, and the advice they’d given was vaguely simple: stock up, seek shelter, keep indoors, and watch the news; new information would be released as it became available.

  The lines that went through the grocery store that day represented almost every member of our community, and it was the last that most would ever see of each other again.

  “Darryl! Darryl!!” Mom shouted up from the pantry. “Darryl, where are you!? What have you been doing all day!?” There were other muffled words I couldn’t make out, but I’d already tuned her out by then.

  I sat at the table and texted with Catee. It was Saturday afternoon, and we’d made it safely home from the grocery store. Catee was home, too, as was everyone else who’d stocked up and heeded the media’s warnings. Everyone that is, except for Mr. Laverdier, who still hadn’t returned since leaving Catee and me in the open, empty garage, days before.

  April 30 3:42 PM

  Have you heard from him yet?

  April 30 3:44 PM

  He called and said he’d be by

  to pick me up at 6:00 tonight.

  April 30 3:45 PM

  Pick you up? To go where?

  April 30 3:47 PM

  Out there. To Damariscotta.

  He said it’s not safe here anymore.

  April 30 3:48 PM

  Like it’s any safer with him!

  April 30 3:50 PM

  I know! I don’t have any other choice

  Where else am I going to go?

  I can’t stay here alone. I’m

  scared. I want to be with you!

  April 30 3:52 PM

  I want to be with you too, Catee.

  Hold on a sec. BRB.

  April 30 3:53 PM

  I’m scared too, BTW.

  “Mom! Mom!!” I yelled again. And because I expected her to still be down in the pantry, I was startled by her emergence from the kitchen.

  “Darryl! Where are you?!” she yelled down the hall, in search of my dad. He’d learned to avoid her entirely in the weeks that’d passed, and since she’d become all too chummy with her new idol, Pastor Dave.

  “Mom??” I repeated, and tried to reclaim her one-track attention.

  “What, Damian!?” she snapped.

  “Sorry, Mom.” My response came coated in as much sweetness as I could muster, and I hoped it might trigger something in her that would make her remember me, and speak to me the way she always had before. In a way that, in spite of all the toxicity that’d consumed her brain, would show that she still saw me and loved me like her son. Or, if nothing else, in a way that would show I was even relevant in her new, self-righteous world.

  Her look softened some, but only marginally, as her attention turned from finding my dad, to me.

  “What is it, Damian?”

  “I was just wondering if Catee could come here? She’s all alone at her place, and she’s scared.”

  “Well, of course she’s scared, Damian. As she should be. As everyone should be. But it’s not my place to go into town and pick her up. Not when P
astor Dave needs her. And besides, he’s picking her up, later on. You just tell her to hold tight.”

  “How do you know that????” I asked, dumbfounded by the knowledge she’d kept to herself.

  “That’s not up for discussion, Damian. And like I said, you just tell her to wait there, to stay inside, and he’ll be home to grab her, soon enough.”

  “But she doesn’t want to go with him, Mom. She can’t—

  “Damian,” her words turned stern, “I’m sorry if I sounded like it was up for negotiation, so let me rephrase it for you: We are not picking her up. She is not coming here. And as far as I’m concerned, you are not to have anything more to do with each other. All it’s done is cause problems—more problems for you than you could ever imagine. You two are clouding each other’s vision. Filling each other’s heads with theories and lies that are going to get you into more trouble than you can handle. And so maybe I’ve been too open—too accepting—too willing to allow you to warp each other’s minds. Well, that comes to a stop, here and now. Give me that phone, Damian.” Her words came with a velocity and finality I didn’t see coming. They caught me off guard and left me speechless.

  “Give. Me. Your. Phone. Damian.” The punctuation of each word showed no give on her part, and my resistance came unrestrained.

  “No! Never!” I yelled and jumped to my feet. “You’re just as bad as he is! You’re just as crazy as he is!! What’s happened to you!? What’s wrong with you!? You’ve lost your mind!! You’re nothing more than his brainless puppet, now!!!”

  She was quick to move, but I was faster, and I knocked my chair to the floor between us. I darted around to the backside of the table and stood opposite from her. She moved one way, and I moved the other. She turned back, and I reversed directions and banged out my final text to Catee:

  May 22, 2012 3:58 PM

  Don’t go with him! Stay home!

  I’ll come for you!

  It’s all I had time for before Mom surprised me and flung across the table with unprecedented agility. Her fingers dug into my forearms and latched on like manacles. I tried to pull away, but the surprise of it all was too much, and by the time my hands wriggled free from her grasp, I was phoneless. And before I could protest, she banged it on the table until splintered shards of its screen bounced across the grain of the wood.

  “MOM!!!”

  “What’s going on in here!?” Dad finally emerged from the hall.

  “That crazy bitch just smashed my phone to pieces!!!” I couldn’t believe my own words and, had it been any other time, my dad might have lashed out at me for them. But times were different then, and I gave words to what he’d felt and wanted to say for weeks. His response was a muted one that showed unbiased allegiance to neither of us.

  “Martha. What’s going on? What’re you doing?”

  “I’m doing what you aren’t, DAR-RYL,” she snapped. “I’m doing what I can to save this family! And speaking of that, where’s Nicole!? Didn’t you tell her to get home like I told you to? And what have you been doing all day?! Why isn’t that pantry reorganized like I said needed to be done! Where are the beds?! Where are the rations??!! Am I the only one here who’s got their head screwed on right anymore!!!” It was the most laughably, paradoxical thing she could have said. At least, it would’ve been if someone we loved weren’t coming unraveled, right before our eyes.

  “You’re crazy, and I’m done with you! Forever!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, charged from the room, and headed toward the stairs and my bedroom.

  “Well don’t go thinking things are going to be so grand up there, either!” Mom yelled from behind. “I’m pulling the internet, too! You’re done with that girl until you come to your senses!! I’m doing this for you, Damian!! I’m doing all this to save you because you refuse to save yourself!!!”

  The tears that welled and poured from my eyes were a mixture: one was rage, another sadness. One was for Catee, and another, for the death of my mom. One for my dad, who’d lost his soul mate, and one for me, who’d become a helpless victim in my own life.

  May 2nd:

  Mom left that night. She tried and tried, even forcefully and by the arm, to drag my dad and me with her. She said it was for our own good and that we needed to go with her. That she’d talked with Pastor Dave and that it was time. The pantry and the plans she’d so militantly put together were to be abandoned, and a new plan—one that broadcasts hadn’t suggested—was underway. We were to go to The Gathering’s encampment in Damariscotta to meet up with Mr. Laverdier and to await his guidance from there.

  As much as I resisted, I was torn. I didn’t know what to do. I tried calling Catee from my dad’s phone, but got nothing. Why wouldn’t she answer? I wanted to make sure she got my message and that she was staying behind. That she was waiting for me to meet her in Madison. But, what if she hadn’t? What if her dad got his hands on her, and he’d dragged her off to Damariscotta with him? I had to put faith in what I knew in my heart: that she was there, waiting for me. Knowing her the way I did, I couldn’t begin to believe she’d allow him to do that to her. I couldn’t imagine she’d leave me behind without her. But what if she didn’t have a choice? What if he pulled her away the very same way Mom had tried doing with me?

  In the end, I opted to stay behind. My dad did, too. And it was a sorrowful occasion as our family separated. Mom wished us the best, and she told us that she’d be waiting when we came to our senses. That help was there for us. That we still had time to pledge ourselves to Pastor Dave and to be safe. And then she placed one of The Gathering’s cards on the table, before she closed the door on us.

  We didn’t buy into it. Neither did Nicole, who, like so many others, failed to recognize the magnitude of what lay ahead, and who’d already hunkered on campus with the rest of her dorm.

  “Well, looks like it’s just me and you now, kid.” My Dad forced out an uneasy chuckle.

  “It’s been just you and me for a while now,” I replied, while we stood and stared at the door.

  “Don’t get to worrying too much about all this,” he tried to reassure me. “It’ll all blow over, soon enough. If I know your mother, she’ll be back by the morning. She loves this family too much to be away from it right now.”

  “I’m starting to wonder, Dad. I don’t think she even remembers who she is anymore; I don’t think she remembers us at all.” With no response from him, I continued to fill the awkward silence of the moment. “I tried to warn you. Catee and I tried to warn everyone, but no one wanted to listen. Now look … look how everything turned out,” I said. “You know he’s the one behind it, Dad. Right? Mr. Laverdier started all this.”

  “You really think he had something to do with this, don’t you?” Dad asked, still skeptical of my finger pointing.

  “Well, don’t you???” I asked, surprised by his ongoing resistance to the obvious. “Everything I’ve seen. Everything we’ve read. It all points to him, Dad.” I calmly said. “Why else would he be acting the way he is? Why else would he be building an army the way he is? This is his doing, Dad. He’s playing like a God or something.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Damian. Trust me. I hear you. I guess it’s just hard for me to wrap my head around something I haven’t actually seen for myself. You know, I asked your mother about what you told me—about those meetings out at his camp. And I asked her about that injection, too …”

  “Well? What’d she say?”

  “Nothing. She said it was crazy. Told me I was a fool if I believed the wild minds and lying words of teenagers instead of hers.”

  “And???”

  “Well, I guess I believed her at the time, Damian. Your mother is my wife. I had to take her word for it,” he said mournfully.

  “And now???”

  “Now?” He repeated back. “Well, now I’ve got to say … well, I guess, maybe you’re right. Maybe she isn’t entirely all right in the head anymore. I think maybe she’s a little sick. A different kind of sick, though. N
ot like those people on TV. I think maybe she just needs some time to work things through, and eventually, she’ll be back to the woman she always was. I can’t help but believe everything will set itself right again before we know it. I have to believe that,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I’ve got to believe it.”

  My heart broke for him as he spoke. His words, always more sarcastic than serious, had become heavy in their candor. It was a time of crisis in more ways than one. And for him, it was one that was compounded by the betrayal of the person he’d held closest in life. I wasn’t sure how’d he’d react if she didn’t come back that night … or the next morning … or the day after that. The thought of her being gone for good was unfathomable, and it wasn’t one we’d entertain—at least, not aloud.

  Saturday passed and there were no new revelations, only panicked alarm from the broadcasters who offered up no solutions and only increasing reports of The Whitening’s spread. There was no word from Mom, and there was no answer from Catee, either. I called her again and again, but got nothing but rings and voicemails. I asked my dad to bring me to town to check in on her and, in spite of his concern, his own loss won-out, and my pleas fell on deaf ears. We didn’t speak much else that day, about anything really, especially my mom, as we continued to prepare our pantry for the impending lockdown; the rise in incidents was only growing faster and faster.

  I considered slipping away and taking my bike the eighteen miles to Catee’s house—to see if she was there and waiting for me. But sensibility kept me home. With the rising attacks across Madison, already spreading to its suburbs—Platsville included—it would’ve been suicide.